Atlanta Macintosh Users Group - Election 2003 Candidates

2003 Election Candidates

Board Nominees
Chris Waldrip for President

My first contact with AMUG was in 1997 when I founded a Mac Users Group in Valdosta, Ga. I asked for information on starting a User Group from one of the oldest and well-known Mac User Groups in the country, and received a wealth of information to use in our work starting our own User Group.

Within months of my moving back to Atlanta in 2001 I looked up AMUG and made the next available meeting. A few months later the election process was complete, but there was a vacancy in the Newsletter Director position. I approached the board and offered my services. By December of that year, I was appointed Newsletter Director and approved by the membership.

That year I worked to increase the newsletter frequency from a four issues the previous year, to at least 6 printed issues, and PDF versions available each month. The newsletter grew from four pages to a regular 8, with the occasionally larger issue. The newsletter even received an Honorary Mention from Adobe's Newsletter Competition at MacWorld New York 2001.

With the end of my term as Newsletter I looked at how I could better serve AMUG. In 2002, I was elected to the office of President and started working to make AMUG a better organization. The job of President is one of facilitator. Helping board members do the work they need to do, and helping to develop the ideas of members and board members alike. There are few things that a good President can honestly say he achieved on his own, being able to help the group and the board are the best he can hope for.

During my term, the board took the Swapfest and made it into the Maclanta Xpo we've all enjoyed the past few years. The Xpo's have been well received and participation has increased. Our last Xpo at the Art Institute of Atlanta was very well received, and we hope to do even better in 2004.

One of the first things I addressed were the meeting of the Board of Directors. You can ask any board member from the past two years about how the Board meetings have improved. When I started on the board as the Newsletter Director the Board meetings would typically last three to four hours, and little would be accomplished. Now they are easily down to two hours. Reports are submitted in advance, and only changes or additional comments are needed, leaving a majority of the time for discussion on how to improve AMUG.

One of the most obvious changes since I took over as President has been the redesign of the web site. An organization's web site is one of the most visible references people have for an organization. AMUG's is one of the best Mac User Group sites around. We're already talking about refreshing our site.

I have worked hard to see that the Audit Committee has meet for each year of my term as President. And I have worked hard to recruit replacement board members, although unfortunately not always successfully. This past year the Board was handicapped with a series of vacancies. The membership was easily aware of these. But this coming year it looks like we'll have a nearly full board as we start 2004.

This past year I tried to institute a series of goals for the board to use as a guideline so we could attempt to measure our effectiveness. This was a good idea, which could have been implemented better. Hopefully we can do better with our goals for 2004.

I have also worked outside the board to help AMUG. In 2003 I worked with a grant program to bring in several thousand dollars to help AMUG's work in fixing up old Mac's and giving them to other non-profit organizations such as Lekotek.

Most of you should have received post cards asking you to participate in the first AMUG survey in several years. It took a lot of work to get this survey underway, and hopefully your responses will help the 2004 Board of Directors improve AMUG.

In 2004 I'm hoping that the AMUG Volunteer Core that we've just started will help increase the level of member volunteerism so that AMUG can continue to offer programs and events for the membership and community.

Lastly, I would be a liar if I said that all that has been accomplished in the past two years was solely my doing. The board of directors chosen by the membership has worked hard over the past two years to make AMUG a better place. I have just had the pleasure of helping formulate and build on ideas, and help direct the board to complete their goals.

Thanks go to everyone who has served on the board during my term as President; Bruce Barrett, Robert Cameron, Doug Franks, Bob Garst, Kelly Hilliard, Lee Hoong, Kathleen Innes, Todd Johnson, Brian Mackey, Harmen Steele, and David Whitehead.